


Clone Minisaga

by Fluencca



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Clone Saga, Clones, Comic Book Science, Comics/Movie Crossover, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Irondad, Light Angst, Post-Spider-Man: Homecoming, Pre-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Rescue Missions, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart, spiderson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:02:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 17,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24897376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fluencca/pseuds/Fluencca
Summary: The intelligence community keeps saying that the next war will be a genetic one, and there's a government initiative to strike the first blow: they've taken some Spider-Man DNA with the plan to create a new batch of supersoldiers. When Ross learns of this, he turns to what's left of the Avengers to stop it from happening.Rather, to stop it from happeningmore, because there are several Peter Parker clones already very much alive and kicking.
Relationships: Jessica Drew & Peter Parker, Jessica Drew & Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 13
Kudos: 32





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

> This is a _very_ free-form retelling of Clone Saga from the Ultimate Spider-Man comics (2006). I've borrowed a lot from Bendis, so it bears repeating that I own none of this. I dragged his sandbox to the MCU parking lot, and I'm playing in it there.

Ross cut straight to the chase.

"What do you know about human cloning?"

Tony took a moment to decide how to answer that. For Ross to come out to the Compound was rare. To ask specifically for Tony and Rhodey and no one else was rarer. To speak plainly without bothering to illustrate some bullshit point about humanity or suffering or his grandkids was unheard of. And to do it all at three in the morning...

"More than most," Tony answered plainly. "it's not my field, but the science is straightforward enough. SI has several studies of therapeutic cloning under its umbrella. As far as I know no one has dicked around with reproductive cloning beyond what you see on the news. Human DNA has proven too complex and too weak to survive artificial, ektopic settings. Why?"

Ross sighed. His shoulders sagged. He pulled out a folder, but didn't open it. When he looked back to Tony and Rhodey, he said, "I fucking hate this."

He sat back, sighed again, and explained himself.

"I stumbled onto something I wasn't supposed to. It was one of those goddamned interagency events, and my equivalents in Homeland and the Bureau were being insufferable, dropping hints, talking about how much they loved _Hello, Dolly_... So I looked into it. It's all beyond top secret, it's black ops. But it's officially sanctioned, and it's _done_. They fucking did it, and it's worse than you can imagine."

"General, who did what?" Rhodes asked, his impatience clear, at least to Tony. He'd always respected the chain of command, it was in his blood. But ever since his injury he'd been less and less diffident to it.

Ross didn't seem to notice, or maybe to mind. He reached for the drink he'd refused earlier and took a deep sip, then slid the file across the table at Rhodes. Tony read over Rhodey's shoulder as Ross answered.

"Cloning. The FBI contracted some insane bioengineer, geneticist, he's credentialed up the ass. And they did it. The United States government in its cunt morality is making a clone army."

Tony looked away from the file only long enough to be sure that Ross wasn't playing some sick joke on them, but the defeated posture, the redness or his eyes, the fact that he was drinking and cussing like a staff sergeant... No, this was real.

He looked back at the folder.

It was thick, and the pages Rhodes was pursuing were detailed specs of bioregenetive tech. Tony hated to admit it, but it looked legit. He nudged Rhodey, who flipped further.

It was _distressingly_ legit. If these sac chambers were built, in the right conditions, it would definitely solve the tissue decomposition issue. A fetus could be aged to term—fuck, it could be aged indefinitely. They could produce their army of supersoldiers ready to go.

But it all relied on a variable that, as far as Tony could see, hadn't been addressed at all by the tech.

"How is this legal?" Rhodes asked, without looking up from a section titled "Subject I."

"And why come to us? Jesus, this poor... This can't be real," Rhodey added, flipping past an image with a grimace. It was a black and white photo of a wispy kid no older than Peter judging by the boyish frame, kneeling on the ground. His head was covered. The caption read _Subject I disposed of via humane termination._

The image, its implication, they were both gruesome, but Rhodey was right. This couldn't be real. And not just because the thought of some innocent, mentally blank newborn teenager being murdered and disposed of like some much leftover meat was impossible to linger on. The science simply didn't add up.

"If it is true, how did they strengthen the DNA? No one's managed to keep the genomic information consistent past the blastocyst stage, not in humans."

Ross poured himself another drink, threw it back, then poured another.

"It's _legal_ ," he spat the word contemptuously, "the same way they stabilized the DNA. They took their initial sample from someone they're contending isn't human. What we call enhanced, they're calling," Ross stopped, swallowed, and looked down. "I'm ashamed to even repeat it. They got blanket approval because they're calling it _animal testing_."

Ross shook his head, then straightened. He tugged on his suit, squared his shoulders, and leveled his glance at Tony. "Stark, I'm here because I can't stop this. I'm not supposed to know about it, not until it's a done deal. There's no legal recourse here. Once they've got their army of supersoldiers, the point is moot. Everything's allowed in hindsight if it's a good look on the administration, but we can't let it get that far. _You_ can't. This... This is not what God intended. It's a monstrosity, even if they _weren't_ torturing these clones in the name of science. Look at number 15."

Rodey flipped through, stopping abruptly about three quarters through the thick file. He froze, then disgustedly shoved the file away.

"Why would they do that? Who would do that? Even for animal experimentation, that's…abhorent." He didn't even sound angry, Tony thought as he pulled the file closer.

He immediately understood why Rhodes couldn't bear to look further.

Subject 15 wasn't even in the picture. Instead were a series of x-rays, showing a twisted, arching spine, inlaid with metal that kept it in from straightening. Instead of a tailbone it tapered off into a wide, artificial appendage. Tony could only imagine what kind of pressure would force a spine into that shape, and how long it would take for the metal to graft itself so fully to the cartilage.

And suddenly the cruelty of the mechanics didn't matter right now, because, "Who? Who did they do this to? You said Enhanced, Mr. Secretary, and there's only a handful of people who could take that kind of abuse. _Who is it_?"

Ross's eyes were hooded—no, shrouded—with guilt. He didn't answer, but Tony suddenly knew with unerring clarity.

"It's Rogers, isn't it?"

Rhodes stiffened beside him. "Is that what this is? Is that why you came to us? So we can go in against Steve Rogers for you? Again?"

"It's not Rogers," Ross said, "and I don't want you to “go in” against anyone, you can untwist your panties and listen.

"When I started looking into this I didn't get very far, just rumors, no proof, but I did make some noise. They knew I knew what they were doing, and someone within the project turned on them. I was approached with this file," he gestured at the file in front of Tony, still open to the manipulated spine of subject 15. "And some additional information. Where their operation is based, how many of these clones were made, and who it was they cloned.

"Just— _wait_ , will you?” He cut Tony off before he could interrupt him. “I'll tell you who, that's why I'm here. But you need to remember two things, both of you, but especially you, Stark.

"I'm coming to you because these assholes need to be stopped, and the system will back them up as long as it has plausible deniability. The Avengers need to step in, even though I can't officially ask y—"

"You're saying you see the value of an independent group with the agency to act without the scope of officia—"

"Fuck off, Rhodes," Ross said, without fervor. He took the opportunity to reach for his phone, and type out a message. "This is different.

“The second thing you need to know," Ross continued, and put his phone down, "is that when the blood sample from the enhanced person had interacted with alien tech. From that plane crash a few months ago, Stark. No one knows exactly how, but it created what they're calling a "temporal neural imprint" on the sample. It’s a side effect they intend to wipe out once their subjects are stable and have enough of their own memories and automatic responses to sustain a practically adult body."

Tony was hearing, he was actively listening, but he wasn't really processing, not anymore. His chest turned dark and hollow. His stomach roiled in acid. A part of his mind split off into a parallel track, and all it was capable of was desperately thinking _no, no, no_ in hopes of derailing the conclusion his thinking mind was coming to, trying to stop that last piece from clicking into place. It only managed to delay him for a few beats. A blood sample from an enhanced person, that interacted with alien tech on his plane?

"What this means, I'm told, is that the clones maintain the memory of the original. They aren't created carte blanche."

No one else has been there, there wasn't even a glimmer of hope it could be anyone other than

"And I'm told this by the person who approached me. Someone from within the project. One of the clones."

And if it was him, Tony's heart was hammering in a rhythm that was making him nauseous, God, Subject 1 had been executed at point blank range, but it wasn't an empty shell of a stranger, it was a living copy, a remembering copy, he'd known who he was and he'd known what was happening, Tony swallowed back on nausea that didn't recede, because that file was filled twenty-two versions of torture, experimentation, of twisted surgical fantasies perpetrated against—

"—so it's really better you hear it from her," Ross finished, and then there was another person there, taking a seat besides Ross. Her shoulders were pulled back, the stance of a deadly ballerina. She walked with none of the diffidence Tony subconsciously expected, though he could read right through that charade. Of course he could. He could read that face in his sleep.

The features were a little more symmetric, the lashes a little longer, the cheekbones perhaps a little sharper; but there was no doubt he was looking into the face of a clone of Peter Parker.

"I'm so sorry, Mr. Stark," she said by way of greeting, and Tony barely made it to the waste basket before he vomited.

~*~

Tony locked the bathroom door behind him, and just leaned against it. He'd gone to the furthest one on the floor; he didn't know if he was going to be sick again, and he didn't want her—him—it? _her_ to hear him if he was.

This was maybe the most appalling crime he'd ever witnessed, and he'd seen quite a few atrocities while held by the Ten Rings.

But it wasn't that girl's fault. She was just as much a victim as Pete was—she _was_ Pete, in a sense, and Tony knew how terrible the kid would feel if Tony had taken one look at him and gone to be sick. He'd have to make it up to her.

He pushed off the door and went to lean on the sink, instead, stumbling as though ill. He looked ill. He'd have to bounce back before he went back in there.

Get himself in fucking check.

Cause this wasn't her fault.

He rinsed his mouth and splashed water on his face, dabbing with the paper towels perhaps a little more aggressively than was strictly called-for. But some color had returned, and that was good.

He could do this. He could go talk to her. Work with her. Figure out who did this and how to stop them. How to goddamned _end_ them. He'd killed before, for Happy and for Pepper, and he hadn't felt a shadow of remorse. Tony could already feel the violence replacing the visceral horror. A dark need to act, to make this better, not only on behalf of the kid, but for those twenty-two, God, it was obscene even to think, clones.

Tony decided to go back to the conference room where the others were waiting, where _she_ was waiting, but he couldn't get the image of Subject 1 out of his head. Peter, on his knees, awaiting a humane bullet. Had he hoped someone was looking for him, right up till the end? Had he understood that he wasn't the real Peter?

Jesus fucking Christ. The real Peter. How was he any realer than the rest of them?

Suddenly Tony was desperate to hear his voice. He fumbled out his phone and placed the call. The kid didn't answer immediately, and Tony was getting ready to go out there and check on him—there was someone out there making copies and killing them, the kid couldn't be safe, and Tony couldn't be stupider for not realizing this sooner. He could be there in 40 minutes if he drove like a madman, but that was too—

"Oh, um, hi," the kid said, sleep dripping oozingly off of every word, and Tony released a tense breath, his eyes shut in effort to focus on _this kid, his_ kid, and not... Any of the others.

The kid must have caught the sigh, because his next question was far more alert.

"Mr. Stark? Is everything okay? It’s like three in the morning. Is it a mission? Should I meet you somewhere?"

"I woke you," Tony said, obviously. "Sorry about that. No, no mission. I just..." He just what? _Wanted to check in before talking to your female clone who shares your memories, Pete, is that really so weird a thing to do at 3 am?_

"Wanted to talk upgrades," Tony lied smoothly, "and lost track of time. But you have school in the morning, you should be asleep."

"I _was_ asleep, Mr. Stark," Peter pointed out, amused.

Tony felt his heart slow down. The kid was safe, at least for now. They’d been at this for months, and they didn’t need him.

"Well, now you're awake and talking to me," Tony said, unlocking the door.

"But you called me!"

"Don't shout, kid. It's like 3 am."

"Is it? I should get to sleep, then. I have school tomorrow."

Tony laughed. It was small and low and barely a laugh, but... The kid helped him feel better. Always. Always, without meaning to.

"Glad you're seeing reason. Good night, kid."

Peter talked through a yawn. "Good night, Mr. Stark. We'll talk later? About the upgrades?"

"You bet. Goodnight, Pete."

It was a terrible thought. Tony tried not having it, but it kept popping into his head, wholly formed.

There were worse people to clone.

~*~

Ross left the conference room just as Tony was about to reenter.

"Good," he said gruffly, on seeing Tony. "I'm heading out. It goes without saying, but I want to be exceedingly specific, Stark: do whatever you can to end this, and keep my name out of it. If you need help from one of your... _illicit colleagues_ , use it. The Accords can go fuck themselves right now, this is a human-rights violation that makes the Viet Cong look like a Berkley campus. And... " Ross hesitated, and took a small step back so he could see Tony more fully.

Tony could tell he was having a whole conversation all on his own, full of false-starts and aborted arguments. It was in his light frown, the gentle tilt of his head, and the way he absently unbuttoned and rebuttoned his suit jacket.

Finally, he stood still, and placed a hand on Tony's shoulder. He looked away as he said, "The Parker kid didn't deserve this."

The gesture meant more than Tony thought it would. He knew that the Accords only ever went through because Ross's interest happened to align with Tony's guilt. Tony was fine with that, because Ross's interest was genuinely for public safety. Sure, he wanted to secure his legacy in State with a solid accomplishment, but it was benign as far as these things go; at least he didn't start a war against a metaphor.

For a while Tony had been afraid that Ross would push him on the identity of Spider-Man, but he kept _not_ , and when Tony finally broached the subject Ross had dismissed him.

"A kid who's saving kittens and stopping muggers? I'll get involved when he becomes an international threat. Until then, spare me."

Watching him walk away now, Tony realized that Ross still hadn't gotten involved in the Spider-Man stuff. None of his concerns had to do with the capabilities of a superhero army, just the—how had he put it?—the cunt-morality of creating one.

"Hey, you okay to drive? You need me to call a driver?"

Ross didn't even turn around. He raised one arm and waved away Tony's offer.

"I'll be fine, Stark. My wife is waiting in the car. She'll drive."

He brought his wife? He was taking the deniability thing seriously.

Tony stepped into the conference room, and faltered only for a moment, when he thought he caught sight of Peter. Of course it wasn't him.

Tony took his seat next to Rhodey, across from the girl.

She was still sitting erect, her maroon suit somehow gleaming, the spider emblem a shining, brilliant white. He could see the large eyes of the mask pooled around her neck where she pulled it down, away from her face. He supposed it made sense; it allowed her to pull it up to her hairline without having to cover her long hair.

Tony made eye-contact. He made sure to be brisk, light, not disgusted. This wasn't her fault, any more than it was Pete's.

"You should know that that," Tony said, miming throwing-up with his hands, "wasn't about you. No, really. It's your suit. You probably know this, but it's _highly_ derivative of the one I made Peter. Plagiarism makes me sick."

"Have you seen me?" She answered, the same lightly amused tint to her voice he'd heard just moments ago over the phone. It was uncanny. "Plagiarism is sorta my middle name."

Rhodey laughed besides him, and Tony belatedly realized that she'd made a joke. He laughed, too, and tried to focus less on who she wasn't.

"Do you have a first and last name to go with that?"

"Tones, meet Jessica Drew." Rhodey leaned in his chair so he was facing Tony. "We've covered some ground while you were out there protesting the purity of your intellectual property, let me catch you up."

Jessica was the most recent and finest of the twenty-two clones made of Peter Parker, according to her superiors.

She'd awoken six weeks ago to a Dr. Ben Reilly standing over her, and he'd explained that although she felt like Peter Parker and shared all of his memories, she was someone newer, better, and stronger.

Rhodey stopped to gauge Tony's response to all this, but Tony only nodded to show he was listening. Jessica took over the narrative.

She was the only clone who got a name. The others were referred to by their Subject number by the staff, and as Peter by the other clones. Jessica only met some of them, and only for short amounts of time. They were considered too belligerent to be let out of their cells unless it was a highly supervised sparring session with Jessica herself.

It was all a part of her training. She was to be presented as the perfect archetype of a supersoldier: as strong, fast, and sharp as the boys, but calmer, more pliable; less likely to fight back, and far more easily controlled.

"Well, that worked out well for them," Tony said, and sat back. He examined her more thoroughly. "They gave you free reign, and when you heard Ross was looking into the project, you snuck out to find him? Find help?"

"More or less," She nodded and hugged herself, as though she was cold. "But I think they may have been right. I'm not Peter, not anymore, but I remember what it's like to think like him. I don't think the boys had the patience to wait out our captors. I don't know for sure, but I think they all fought too soon. It's what I wanted to do. It's what Peter wanted to do." Jessica trailed off, then added, "I worry about him," but she kept her eyes on the ground.

Sitting there, hugging herself in her spandex getup, she suddenly looked every inch the child, her careful self-possession revealed itself as the lie it was trying to conceal.

"Well, a few things about that, Ms. Drew," Tony said, and despite the hour and the grotesqueness of the topic, he did his best to shine, to make others think he had it all under control.

"First, you did the right thing by waiting. Trust me when I say I know it's against your very nature, but it's thanks to you that we can stop those guys." God, she was as terrible as Peter was at hiding her proud little smile. Except, what was awkward on him was painfully beautiful on her. She looked even younger than Pete when she smiled like that.

"Second, everyone worries about Peter."

"Even I do, and I barely know him. He's just got an acme trouble-magnet glued to his ass," Rhodey offered, and Tony nodded vigorously. It was _exactly_ like that with the kid.

"They kept him out of this little experiment for a reason. They're not interested in him. Let's focus on bringing those guys down, getting those other Peters out of there, and then we can worry about him together. Yeah?"

Her eyes, almost honey-colored with unshed tears, sought out Tony's. He let her search his face, let her see how seriously he'd meant all of that. She sniffled once and blinked rapidly, breaking the contact.

Rhodey redirected them back to fact-finding mode. "You said you shared Parker's memories, but how much do you know what he knows?"

"Going back, I know everything. _Everything_. I remember the night his parents died, I remember when Uncle Ben died, I remember that conversation you and I," she pointed to the space between her and Tony, "had up on that roof. I remember everything he remembers from age 3 or so, and until that airplane, with Toomes."

She paused again, then, "Did I do it? Did I stop him?"

Tony stared at Jessica, aghast. "Yeah," He said, his mouth suddenly dry. "You did."

Rhodey noticed Tony’s sudden discomfiture, and probably that Jessica had been upset enough to slip into the first person. Drawing from some hidden well of animation, he told Jessica about how Peter brought the plane down, saved Toomes and all the tech, and left a cheeky note to boot.

She remembered Pete’s parents, his uncle… Why was Tony on that list?

Tony felt every inch the wretched asshole everyone always knew he was. His shame made him feel flushed and cold at the same time. He could tell his face lost color again, and he, at least, was all out of coping mechanisms for the night.

"Yeah, that's the gist of it," Tony interrupted, possibly repeating something that Rhodes had just said.

"Listen, we aren't going to raid the place tonight, I need to read that file properly, and we need to plan. Are they expecting you back there tonight? Do you need to get back?"

Jessica shook her head before he'd completed the question, her long hair cascading after her in emphasis.

"They probably won’t notice I’m gone till mealtime, tomorrow night. But I'm not going back there, not until it's part of a rescue mission. The way they look at me there..." she trailed off and shivered. "I can't."

She stopped, as though waiting for an argument. When neither Tony nor Rhodey offered one, she continued. "So no, I'm not expected anywhere. I can meet you guys back here in the morning, just tell me when."

"Great," Rhodey said, with finality, as he pushed himself to his feet. "You just go wander the wilds of upstate New York, teenage girl, and we'll see you here bright and early for breakfast." He rolled his eyes in exasperated disbelief. “For a smart kid, that’s a really crappy plan. You'll stay here tonight, Spider-Girl," he said.

"Woman," Tony corrected, Jessica speaking at the same time and saying the same thing. Tony heard himself and cringed; calling her a _woman_ out of context made him sound like a major, major, major creep.

Rhodey had certainly heard it, because he stopped stretching and froze, nailing Tony with an incredulous look.

"No—gross, you're not gross, Jessica, you're fine, it's just that when we—Peter and I—when we first met—"

Jessica nodded in relief. "Right," she interrupted. "You called Peter Spider-Boy, and he—"

"He was _very_ emphatic that it was 'man.' I just assumed that she, that you," Tony said, turning from Rhodey back to Jessica, again, "also wanted—"

"Yeah, no, it's fine. You were right, it is, I mean I is—I _am_ Spider-Woman."

" _Awkwaaaaard_ ," Rhodey whispered, pretty loudly. “Y’all work that out. Good night."

Tony led her to a spare room in—Jesus, he hated when Rhodes was right—awkward silence. Jessica kept to his side, and half a step behind him. Tony almost urged her to keep up, but then remembered that this was her first time in the Compound. The kid hadn't been here till after he lost the DNA that made her.

Tony wanted to make small-talk, to slowly guide her to the topic he wanted to ask about, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. Not to talk to her, not to manipulate her into giving him Pete's secrets, nothing. How do you talk to a clone of someone you—you, you're invested in? Whatever fortitude he'd gained in talking to Peter was long gone, and it was all Tony could do not to crack. Because that would lead to a shatter, and he couldn't afford that. Not with the others still out there.

So he led her silently to an empty room, already made up for visitors. He pointed out the bathroom, the way to the kitchen, and how to ask Friday for directions if she got lost. She’d barely nodded, standing in the room, and Tony left her quickly.

He didn't make it very far, though. He was barely at the end of the hallway when his resolved collapsed in on itself, and he turned back.

Sure enough, the door was still open, and Jessica was still in the middle of the huge room, folded in on herself and looking around like she was expecting something foul to jump out at any moment.

"Drew?"

She started and whipped towards him, and Tony felt his heart break at the sight of her wide eyes. She was terrified.

"I'm sorry, I'm fine, I've just never slept _away_ from there before, an—"

"C'mon."

Tony didn't wait for her. He walked back the way they came, past the conference room, and across the building to the living quarters. Jessica followed.

He stopped before another door, this one a hall's length from his own, and next door to Vision's. When Jessica had caught up with him, he pushed to door open and turned on the light.

Behind him, a wide bed stood, the bedding tussled and half-buried beneath clothes and books. Above the headpost was a Star Wars poster, and Kirk and Spock looked down from the ceiling.

The dresser drawers stood ajar, the bathroom door hung open, and a crusty cereal bowl gleamed lazily from the counter beside the sink.

"Maybe something a little more familiar, for now," Tony said, and stepped aside to allow Jessica into the room.

He couldn't see her face. But her shoulders released their tension, her arms dropped to her side, and she kicked off her shoes as soon as she was inside, thought she then picked them up and placed them neatly next to the closet.

They were so alike, but also so different.

Jessica turned to face him. "This is Peter's? He has a room here? I thought... I thought you were done with him. You took the suit and I thought you’d be doubly annoyed by… Me."

That conversation, again. What the hell had Tony said on that rooftop? He knew the broad strokes, but he’d be damned if he knew what might have evoked such a strong reaction. He wondered if it was all the Peters, or just Drew.

"I _was_ done with him. It lasted about eleven minutes. He got the suite back, he's back to Spider-Manning, and he comes up here a couple of times a month to run maintenance, upgrades, movies, you know. Stuff."

"I didn't know. I don't remember that. I, I'm glad, though. For him. Thank you, Mr. Stark. This room is great."

Tony wasn't sure if she was thanking him for her or for Peter.

It kept him up that night.

~*~

Breakfast the next morning was surprisingly chill.

Tony slept poorly for 3 hours or so, and was downstairs before eight. He thought he'd be first, but Rhodes and Vision were already there.

When Jessica came down Vision stared at her unapologetically, long enough to make her curl into the slightly large t-shirt she wore over a pair of Hello Kitty pajama pants. Of course she'd choose those; the girl had a penchant for punishment to rival Peter’s. Why had he even kept those?

"Viz, you won't get your answers by staring, we've talked about this," Rhodey said through a mouthful of oatmeal, gesturing Jessica to a seat across from him. "You sleep okay?"

Vision's glance was immediately buried deeply in the toast he wasn't eating, and Jessica was taking the opportunity to stare at him, now. It was the same reaction Peter had had.

"Uh, good," she answered distractedly. "Everything in that room was exactly how I like it, which was pretty weird."

"Yup. Weird is the name of the game around here," Tony answered her, and took a seat at the head of the table, with Jessica to right, Rhodey and Viz to his left. "Jessica, this is Vision. You've probably heard about him. Viz, meet Jessica Drew. She's..." Tony trailed off, not sure how to proceed. He should probably just say she was some relative of Peter's, but knowing Vision, he'd probably recognize the lie in an instant. It would take him seconds to locate and access the Parker family-tree. But Tony didn’t know how to broach the enormity of the crime with Jessica sitting right there.

"She bares a remarkable resemblance to Mr. Parker," Vision supplied instead, apparently unaware of Tony's hesitation. "But he has no siblings or extended family on record."

"I'm, well, basically no one," Jessica said with an embarrassed laugh, one Tony recognized. She wasn't joking, not really. That decided him.

"Ockham's razor, Viz. How do you account for a person who looks exactly like Peter Parker, who exists in no records, anywhere?"

Vision narrowed his eyes, and his skin faded out of the deep almond color he was wearing today and slipped into the rich plum it became when he was processing at full capacity. "Ah," he said eventually.

"Being artificially brought to life does not make your life artificial, Ms. Drew," Vision added, finally looking at Jessica again. She held his gaze. Then she blinked rapidly several times as he continued speaking.

"Though such an act may turn out favorably, the science behind it is an agreed-upon moral atrocity and absolute illegality. Are we to be enlisted to bring the guilty parties to justice?"

Rhodes answered, and took the opportunity to bring Vision up to date, while Tony screened a call from the kid.

Two years ago, it would have been almost unthinkable that Viz’d have caught the emotional nuance of the situation, and downright impossible for him to have found the right words. Tony was so proud that he didn't care where this emotional growth had come from. He'd been worried, at first, that Vision's… _liaisons_ were with someone who viscerally hated Tony. The punches she packed in Germany were a good indication she was holding on to some baggage. It was fine—he'd grown out of his need to be universally loved roughly when he'd realized he'd barely been nuclearly loved—but he hadn't enjoyed the thought of Vision turning against him.

Seeing him take the truth about Jessica in compassionate stride filled Tony with sense secondary fulfillment he didn't recognize. If _she_ helped Vision get there, Tony was grateful. As he silenced his phone again, he realized it was close to how he felt when the kid took down some big bad, or lowkey bragged about his report card. It was a little like pride. But warmer. Closer.

After breakfast they spent most of the day planning their rescue mission for that night.

Mapping the facility and determining the best entrance and exit strategies had taken all morning, but that was simple busy work. The real unknowns were the other clones. Jessica had only met a few, and for them she vouched. But the others could tip the balance of the rescue mission, if they were primed to resist it.

"Were they trained like you? To be super agents?"

The makeshift team was taking their lunch at the conference room table, the empty takeout containers pushed towards the center, though Jessica was still sipping on a soda, and Tony was snacking on fries.

Jessica unpiled some of the containers stacked in front of her to answer Rhodey. The girl could eat, even more than Parker at his hungriest.

"Most of them, no. Dr. Reilly never said as much, but I think that Father—the man who made us, that's what they have us call him," she explained at Rhodey's questioning look, "I think he sorta hates the boys? They definitely feed them less, they don't get any outdoor time, and, well..."

Jessica shrugged. "Well, you saw the file. I think Father can't help but experiment on them. It's like he has a compulsion to make them hurt."

Uncomfortable silence followed, as they each considered what she’d said. The file certainly supported Jessica’s conclusion. Reading it through had been a pale but painful reflection of the torture it detailed.

“So… Yeah.” Jessica bit her lip.

Rhodes was writing something down. Vision flipped through blueprints.

"Don't call him that." Tony finally said over the discarded takeout containers. He wondered now if _she'd_ been fed enough.

"Will—will you move those? Jesus, kid, stop hiding. Thank you. That man is not your father. Don't you legitimize his hold over you, you got that? Fathers don’t do their best to fuck up their kids."

Tony pointed to Subject 11's profile, which was currently projected up on the big screen. The poor kid had been one of three subjects who'd had four extra limbs engineered—biologically and not mechanically, and Tony supposed he should be thankful—so he'd truly be arachnid shaped. The combination of arms and legs had been different for all three, but none had survived two weeks following their "birth." Heart failure.

"The things this man did, there's nothing but control there. Sick, sadistic, control. You call him Asshole, Dickhead or Madman, like the rest of us."

Tony didn't break eye contact when he sat back. He summoned every bit of authority he had, terrified she'd call his bluff; terrified she'd see he was as far from knowing a good father as he'd been from having one; terrified she'd understand that he was propping her up with strength he was faking.

But she didn't call it, she didn't see, and she didn't understand. She reacted like Peter usually did. She lowered her own gaze, allowing it to flitter back to his to check if he was still watching her. He was. She finally nodded and gave a small, _yeah_.

"So you don't think they'll fight for the other side, then? That's good," Rhodey picked up his thread like he hadn't been interrupted. "If I counted correctly, you've seen or spoken to five Peters. The file accounts for..." He tapped his pen down a running list he'd been updating, counting silently. Counting dead clones.

"According to the file, out of 22 clones, we know the first was killed because they thought the maintained memory was a fluke, not a feature. Three died of heart failure, two were killed in an escape attempt, three more were accidentally over-aged into geriatrics, and four were either killed or died from what the file calls, _web failure_ , whatever that means.

"So that's... 13 confirmed deceased, Drew here makes 14, and we have between five and eight Peters to account for before we leave. Check?" He invited them to check his math.

Thirteen. Thirteen times a kid who thought he was Peter Parker died alone.

Died? These kids were murdered. Tony was itching to suit up and go, already. Find the asshole who made these kids, made them call him Father as he twisted them into whatever perverse shape he could imagine.

"Your summation is correct, Colonel," Vision answered. "And I believe we've ascertained all we can from this file." He took down the display.

Tony’s phone buzzed, again. He exhaled harshly, then answered. He knew that it was a mistake, he wasn’t in the right space to have a conversation right now, but he also knew who he was dealing with. Not answering might be worse.

“Hey, Mr. Stark,” the kid said, and he sounded out of breath. Like he was swinging. “I tried calling you back before, I thought we could talk abou—”

“Yeah, sorry, now’s not a good time, kid. Something came up. But I’m penciling you in for later, yeah?”

“What came up? Is it a—”

“Oh, dear God, no, it’s not _a_ anything _._ When it is, I’ll tell you. I promise. But it’s classified, and I gotta go. Don’t call me, I’ll call you, got it?”

He didn’t wait for the kid to answer. He disconnected the call but held on to the phone tightly, as though to stop it from ringing again. He’d just lied to the kid, outright. He’d never actually done that before, and it made him feel complicit in what he was trying to hide.

“Tony,” Vision interrupted his thoughts, gently. “Might we be bound to tell young Mr. Parker what we have learned? This is after all a violation upon him. In fact, much of the literature likens it to—”

“I know what it’s likened to,” Tony snapped. Rhodey sighed. Of course he knew. And he couldn’t break that to the kid, not with this mission hanging over their heads. “ _No._ Not yet, this… Jesus.” He flattened his palm against his forehead, but it did nothing to lessen the tension building there.

“I agree,” Jessica said, her voice low. “But I don’t think _don’t call me, I’ll call you_ is gonna work on him. Peter spends his whole life waiting for the other shoe to drop. You’ll only make him suspicious.”

“You know what, Drew? How about you cut me some slack here? This is…” Tony gestured at the file, at the screen, at her. “This is a fucking _lot_. I’m doing the best I can.”

At her keen glance, Tony wished he hadn’t shown how much this was all getting to him. She looked like she knew more than he was comfortable with.

Vision saved him from going further down that line of thought.

"We've covered everything of import. When we go in, I shall be recording all our findings, and be in contact with local New Jersey law enforcement." Vision paused, and took the opportunity to look at each of the others fully. When he next spoke, his words somber.

"I too was, created artificially. My mission has always been to protect mankind, at whatever cost. I get that from you," Vision admitted, and shot a small nod and a smaller smile at Tony.

“Though my physical body does not process pain in the traditional sense, I understand suffering. These clones of Mr. Parker are as much a part of mankind as Mr. Parker himself and they have been made to suffer unconscionably. I for one would feel better if we stopped it sooner rather than later. Every moment we delay could mean an additional casualty. Someone, this... Dickhead," Vision said experimentally, carefully enunciating, "has declared a war on Mr. Parker's person. We owe it to him to fight on his behalf without delay. I propose we leave forthwith, rather than wait until sundown."

Vision stood up as he finished speaking, as though he intended to fly out to Jersey without waiting for their response.

“Uh, all in favor?” Rhodey asked, raising his own hand with a shrug.

Tony and Jessica followed suit.

"I guess it's time to go suit up," Rhodey said.

Tony rose. "Drew, you need web-shooters? I have a couple of Peter's spares, and endless web fluid. We keep it on-hand around here, just in case."

Jessica smiled knowingly as she stood up, gracefully despite the borrowed too-large clothes she was still wearing.

"Nope." Her smile was almost smug.

In the next moment, Tony saw why.

She extended the first two fingers of her left hand and in the most incongruent show of delicate power, shot a dual strand of web from her fingertips. She used it to latch on to the ceiling, flip neatly over the table and over Tony’s head, and pluck the fries out of his hand. She popped one in her mouth, and then blew on her fingers as though they were a smoking gun, to polish off her little stunt.

"Bio-organic webs?" Tony asked, and Jessica nodded proudly in response. “When I eat beets they turn pink,” she shared casually, and turned to leave.

Tony, Rhodes and Vision stared after her.

"That is so goddamned cool."

"And kinda gross," Rhodey added.

Tony bowed his head in concession. Yeah, that, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy to hear your thoughts, comments, ideas, impressions, or comments.


	2. Part Two

The facility was actually an old hotel, gutted and refurbished into state-of-the-art genetic labs on the top floors, and reinforced steel and stone dungeons beneath.

Rhodey landed the jet on the roof with an ungraceful thump ("are you trying to announce our presence?" Tony had snapped, and Rhodey responded with a rude gesture and suggestion Tony clean the landing gear once in a while. Vision looked interestingly between them, and Jessica rolled her eyes). They flew down the side of the building and let Jessica guide them through a side door, across the abandoned kitchens and down into a basement. Then, they went lower.

The level they were on was hewn into the foundations, wet concrete and mildewy air assaulting them as soon as Tony fried the lock. They pushed the door open onto a long corridor, with dozens of thick, metal doors on either side of them.

"Jesus," Tony said, knocking a gauntlet on one of them. The metal was so thick it barely made a sound, just a deadened _thmp_ that barely traveled back to his own ears.

"Yeah. These are the boys' dorms. We should start with these, and these," Jessica said, pointing to the first three doors on either side of her. She stood aside as Vision came forward, before the first door.

A blinding flash of golden light later, and the door was hanging off its hinges. Jessica pulled it clear and tossed it aside as a Peter Parker came cautiously forward.

The windowless room behind him was infuriatingly small, maybe six feet the long way, four-and-a-half wide. It had only a small metal bed and a toilet. There wasn't even a sink.

Peter, who of course wasn't really _Peter_ , was looking in confusion between the four rescuers. His eyes were a shining blue and he wearing yet another variation of the suit Tony had made for the kid. It was all black with a maroon spider sprawling across the chest, the legs aligning with his protruding ribs to give the emblem an unsettling 3-dimensional look.

"Mr. Stark?” He breathed, and then tore his eyes away from Tony. “Jessica? What, how did you convince him to come?"

"I didn't have to." She gave him a hand and pulled him close.

"But I thought he—"

"Apparently not."

That seemed to satisfy him. They turned together to the next door, and the next one after that.

Tony made sure to lower his faceplate.

The first few variants of that conversation bit at Tony, latching on to sensitive flesh, but he gradually grew numb. By the time all nine living clones were standing in front of him, he felt empty. He made sure Friday mapped their genetic signatures so they didn't lose track of any, and it didn't even register as odd, or perverse, or filthy. It was nothing.

He had expected the curved, tortured spine of Peter Fifteen, but he hadn’t known about the heavy, exoskeletal suit fused to his skin with curving scorpion’s tail. He'd read about the extra two arms of Peter Eleven, and even offered a weak joke about representation when Peter Ten stepped out of his cell and questioned the others how and why the Avengers were here. Tony was taking it all in.

Vision opened their doors.

Peter Twenty, with the caustic bio-organic webs, but no blunting of the nerve receptors which shot them.

Jessica explained to them what was happening.

Peter Thirteen who was created with eight milky, unblinking, unseeing eyes.

Rhodey answered immediate questions, and asked some of his own.

Peter Seven, as big and blond as Steve Rogers, his blue eyes more terrified than Steve Rogers’ ever were.

They’d reached the final cell.

Peter Three. Huddled in the corner of the ceiling, his face to the wall. Peter-Seven-Rogers gently prying him off the wall, supporting his shaking form as he guided Peter Three towards the others, never ceasing whatever delicate monotony he was whispering.

When they were fully visible, it was all Tony could do to keep perfectly still even the walls of his numbness collapsed inwardly, crushing him.

The right side of the kid’s face was a horror of half-formed sinew. His eye hung haphazardly out of its socket, though it was still attached, and it moved in sync with the healthy eye. His teeth were visible through the hole that used to be his cheek, nothing remaining there but a few strands of skin that breached the void between his lower jaw and his nose.

The whole was almost made worse by the fact that the left side of his face was perfectly intact. Tony could see Peter in that face, a very real and frightened Peter, in the frantic eye and the worried arch of his brow.

"Mr. Stark, is it really you? Are you here to take me to Aunt May? I have to find her, you have to help me save her!"

Tony held his breath and released it too quickly, then hyperventilated briefly on the privacy of his armor. He forced his eyes open, forced himself to look at the kid, even the missing parts of him. When he spoke his voice was steady, his eyes already drying.

"May's fine. I spoke to her just a little earlier," Tony lied, and Jessica, now holding the arm of this broken, mutilated Peter repeated his words softly in his ear, like a lullaby.

"Let's get out of here, and we'll find her and keep her safe together, yeah?"

He nodded at Tony, the loose flesh on the side of his face flapping sickly with the movement. "Yeah, that would be great. Thank you, Mr. Stark!"

And he sounded so much like Peter that Tony had to mute his speakers again and control the anguished breaths that wanted so desperately to be heard.

Peter Rogers and Four-Arms carefully pulled the shifty, anxious kid away, guiding him to sit against a wall and offering reassurances that Aunt May was fine.

"What... What's his deal? What was that?" Tony asked, finding that now he couldn't look away from this shadow of a shell of what Peter should be.

Peter Thirteen answered, looking directly at Tony as though he could see him. The dead eyes stared blankly, a jarring contrast to the warm pathos in his voice. "They experiment on his healing. They break bones, make him sick, cut him and leave him open, stuff like that. When that got old they started to burn away half his face with acid every time, and wait to see how long it takes him to heal. In the beginning it would take just two or three days to heal completely, but we think it’s slowing down because they’ve done it so often.”

“How often?”

“He’s subject 3,” Jessica answered now. “He’s the oldest one of us that’s alive. According to the file he’s about six months old, and according to Dr. Reilly they experimented once every two days at the beginning, now it’s a little sparser. What’s that come to?”

“Too much,” Tony said, but he couldn’t stop his brain from running the numbers. Anywhere between 40 and 65 times, depending on how fast Peter healed and what type of acid they’d used. Who the hell could strap a healthy kid to a table and do that?

"Yeah. I think he fought them at the beginning," Jessica continued, and several of the other Peters nodded. They were all crossing their arms, in identical body language. Tony wondered if they noticed. "And they threatened Aunt May to get him to stop. That's why he's so obsessed with her. All he does is talk about finding and protecting her. They broke him," she concluded simply.

The numbness was gone, burned away by a violent anger. Tony knew it was irrational, but it was directed at Jessica.

" _Broken?_ Do you know who I am? What I am? I decide when something's broken. You're what, six weeks old? You haven't seen broken. Let's get a move on so we can get everyone out of here." Tony allowed his anger to bolster him. They had a job to do.

He made sure all nine DNA signatures were accounted for, then clapped his hands. "If no one here has any objections, we'd like to get you out of here. Thoughts?"

Eight Peters mumbled their assent, and one Jessica narrowed her eyes.

"Great. So phase B. Drew, Viz, you're up," Tony said, and pointed literally up.

Drew knew the facility, and Vision could phase through walls. All in all, they were the best team to access the master lab and destroy the Peter Parker DNA sample.

"Remember," Rhodes spoke up, "in and out. We'll wait for you here. If Drew is right, and we're betting our collective asses that she is, their security will converge on the lab as soon as the sample's been compromised, and that's when it'll be safe for this group to leave. You get to the roof and bring the jet around.”

"Lead the way, Ms. Drew," Vision said.

Jessica pulled her mask up and led the way out of the cellar.

~*~

They waited. Tony looked over at the sea of Peters, but every time he tried to confront what he was seeing, put it to words, his heart began pounding, so he stopped. He leaned against the busted door frame of one of the criminally narrow cells, and watched Rhodey chat up the clones.

"So you guys, all of you, you have the same memories up till a few weeks ago, but you're not the same person? How does that work?"

"It's kinda like..." Peter with the Very Blue Eyes crossed his arms high on his chest, his hands tucked into his armpits as though they were cold, "Well, kinda like we're siblings, who grew up together. We share all the same core memories, but our experiences since we were born have made us a little different."

"So, do you all have the same favorite color?" Rhodes turned, to indicate he was asking them all.

Seven of them looked at one another appraisingly. while Peter Three remained seated, his eyes focused on the floor, mumbling that Aunt May likes purple.

"Uh, Red?"

"Blue."

"Same."

"Green."

"Green."

"Green."

"Huh." Rhodey nodded thoughtfully. "Favorite smell?"

"New car," they answered unanimously, even Peter Three.

"Cutest kid at school?"

He was answered with an instant chorus of _MJ_ s, but Peter Rogers and Peter with the four arms said "Ned," then glanced at each other, surprised. They gave an identical little laugh, then engaged in an incredibly elaborate high-five.

Rhodes looked back to Tony, and even though he said nothing, Tony knew what he was thinking. He nodded. They were such kids, the lot of them. They'd been through hell down here, but they were so young. So dorky.

They deserved so much better.

Something flashed on his HUD, and Tony quickly checked all the readings to see what had changed, but everything seemed in order. the composition of the air was the same, the entryway still clear, and nine Parker DNA markers were accounted for.

"Viz, everything okay with you guys?"

"Yes. Ms. Drew and I have secured and destroyed the primary blood sample, but their records indicate a backup sample in a secondary lab on the penthouse level. We're on our way there, now."

"Keep me posted," Tony said distractedly. Something felt off—

Nine DNA markers.

And Jessica was with Vision.

His heart hammering, Tony spun around, but he couldn't see a place to hide in the smelly, moist underground level. "Parker?" He called, and eight clones turned to look at him.

Jesus, not now, not like this—if only he could have two more hours, two more hours would make everything so much easier—

"OG Peter Parker," he corrected himself, "front and center. C'mon."

Blind Peter pointed him out, standing still atop the pipes that ran the length of the ceiling. Seeing he was found out, He flipped to the ground and stood facing Tony, his brilliant red-and-blue suit an affront to the dank, leaky rooms around them.

The kid pulled off his mask as soon as he landed, his hair and his eyes wild.

Tony raised his faceplate. If Pete couldn't hide from this, it was unfair that Tony should.

"Mr. Stark, what—What is this?"

The kid was breathing heavily, his eyes red with frightened, unshed tears.

"Who are these—what—" His voice broke, and as he fought to keep his breaking composure, Tony's heart broke with it.

Everything he'd stifled in the last twelve hours couldn't be denied, not faced with the kid who was demanding answers to an insane situation he couldn't possibly understand. Peter was strong, strong enough to handle psychos and crime lords and even a supervillain or two, but this violation ran deeper than anything that'd ever been done to him, and Peter recognized it, he felt it, even if he couldn't possibly fathom what it was.

"Kid, look at me, calm down," Tony said, even though he knew it was a futile, and even a cruel instruction. How could he be calm?

"I—Mr. Stark, how can I be _calm_? What, what, what is this?" Peter held himself rigidly, allowing his eyes to stray neither left nor right, not daring to look around at the others. His gaze was fixed on Tony with a panicked desperation that Tony would do anything to rid him of.

"What is this? Why... Why do all these people look like me? What is going on?" He was no longer even trying to control his voice, and the last thing he'd said had been almost a sob.

"Kid—shit. Shit—we're not sure what exactly is happening. We—Colonel Rhodes and I—were only just tipped off about this last night. These people, there's no good way to say this. They don't just look like you, they _are_ you.”

The kid gasped—

“In a manner of speaking! I'm sorry, that was a shitty thing to say. I mean that scientifically speaking, they're clones. Someone got a hold of your DNA and began genetic experimentation. We're here to shut them down."

Tony could see the eight echoes of Peter standing around and behind him. Eight others of exactly the same height. Same worried expression. It was like a maze of funhouse mirrors, in the sickest carnival in the world.

Peter began to look around, as well, but Tony stopped him.

"Kid, kid," he whispered, placing a tentative hand on Peter's cheek. With sure but gentle pressure he turned Peter's head, so he was facing him. God, the terror in those eyes.

"Listen to me. I swear to you, we'll get to the bottom of this. The people who made this happen will pay. But right now, we have a dickhead madman who’s been hurting a bunch of kids, and we need to get them out of here. Who are you?"

The kid had been hanging on Tony's every word, his eyes nailed to Tony's as though they were keeping him afloat; but now that Tony had paused he began breathing heavily again, his heaving breaths causing Tony cupped his face.

"Peter Parker," he answered, in a small voice.

Tony _tsk_ ed impatiently. "That's your name. Who are you?"

Peter's head was still held firmly between Tony's gauntleted hands, but now he tried to turn, his eyes seeking out the clones. They were each standing perfectly still, an identical pained expression on all their faces. _I worry about him_ , Tony remembered.

"No. They don't have the answer. They aren't you. Who are you?"

Peter swallowed, worked his jaw, took a controlled breath.

"I'm Spider-Man."

Tony squeezed once, and released him.

"The one and only. In a few minutes we'll be ready to move out, and I'll fill you in on what we know."

The kid nodded, and turned around to face the eight versions of him in the room. Rhodes gave him a two-finger salute by way of greeting, and Peter waved back uncertainly. His glance flitted across Peter Twenty with the caustic bio-organic webs, Peter in the smothering scorpion suit, and Blue Eyes. He took in Peter Rogers with a soft _whoa_ as he appraised his muscular frame, and an almost silent _cool_ under his breath at Peter with the four arms. His shoulders relaxed a little, and Tony relaxed, too. Jesus, this kid was resilient. He could handle this.

Then Peter Three rushed forward, almost slamming into Peter, taking one of his hands in both of his.   
“Oh, God, you’re _you._ You know what happened to Aunt May! Is she alright, did they get her? They said they would but Mr. Stark said she was alright, do you know? Is she okay? Is she?”

The kid recoiled from the lolling eye and exposed jaw of Peter three. Tony couldn’t even tell if he’d heard what he’d said. Peter wrenched his hand free and backed up, away from him.

"Don’t—what did they—" His voice cut off as he bumped against Tony's chest. Peter spun around, and all the desperation and panic and terror Tony had managed to talk down were back, chasing one another across his features.

"Pete, it's—"

"I'm sorry Mr. Stark, I'm sorry, I, I, this is—I can't," he stammered, and then his mask was on, and he was leaping towards the pipes that lined the ceiling. Before Tony could zero in on his location the DNA Marker disappeared.

"Fuck." Tony cursed and looked around for someone to blame, but he was surrounded by the only people who might have a greater claim to suffering than Peter at the moment.

"Fuck," he repeated, with no heat.

He looked around the dark hall, littered as it was with strewn doors and gaping cells. Each of the kids looked away guiltily as Tony’s eyes flitted across them.

His eyes stopped on Rhodey.

"Tony, the kid's... A kid. It's okay if he needs a minute to process all this. We did, and we're grown ass men," Rhodey said. That was fair enough, Tony knew, but he wasn’t worried about the kid processing. He didn’t like Peter to be anywhere near this, certainly not off on his own. This place, they had rooms designed to hold him. They had tables suited to his strength to strap him to. And they had people who were gleeful to put them to use. Tony thought it was bad being worried about these kids, but now he was scared.

“Let’s move out,” Tony finally said. “We’ll get this bunch back to the jet, and scan for the kid. I don’t want to stick around a second longer than we need to once Viz and Drew are done.”

He looked around at Peters. _Jesus_. He’d need to name them when this was all done. “You all got masks? Pull them on. Once we leave here, you all have to protect Peter’s identity. You got that?”

Some went back into their cells, some pulled a mask out of some hidden pocket or waistband. Within moments, though, they were all suited up and ready to go.

Within minutes they were up the stairs, across the kitchen, and out the side door. Vision landed the jet in an empty lot across the street and around the corner.

The Peters climbed into the jet, but Tony lingered outside, alternately scanning the street level and the rooftops. The police had begun arresting the personnel at the lab, the sun had begun to wink westwards, and Tony was still worried.

Jessica joined him, silently scanning the skyline with him. Finally, she put on hand on Tony’s armor to get his attention, and pointed with the other.

He followed her gaze back to the hotel they’d just left. About halfway up was an intricate balcony, and on the jutting cherubs on the northeast corner sat a slight figure, hunched and engulfed by shadows, looking over the cops milling far below him.

“Yeah, I see him now. Good eyes. Rhodes, I’m gonna go get the kid. Get these guys settled in, we’ll be right back.”

“I’m coming with you. It was bad enough when he met the boy clones. We can’t spring me on him, too,” Jessica said, and at Tony’s open bewilderment added, “I’m a _girl_.”

She was right, of course, and Tony felt bad for snapping at her earlier. She was putting up with as much as any of them, even if she hid it better.

“You ever ride along on a web?”

“Yeah. Well, Peter did, in Germany.”

“Good. Let's go."

Tony wasn't sure why, but it felt different with Jessica. Maybe because she didn't _whoop_ or somersault unnecessarily or let go of the webs to experience a few breaths' free fall, like Peter did. When they arrived on the balcony she let go and landed on the ground in front of Peter, no extra flairs or gymnastics. She stood straight, threw out her hip and crossed her arms, a move Tony had absolutely never seen from Peter.

In fact, seeing them now together Tony could see they weren't as alike as he'd initially thought. Her chestnut hair was a few shades lighter than his. She held herself entirely differently, more confident, yet also more defensive. And although they had the same cadence when they spoke, Tony would be able to tell them apart blindfolded a hundred times out of a hundred.

Jessica flipped her hair over her shoulder and pulled her mask down around her neck.

She didn't say anything.

She let the heart-shape of her face, her almond colored eyes, the slightly asymmetric curve of her lips speak for themselves. The right conclusion dawned on Peter slowly, but when once it did it hit him like a ton of bricks. He inhaled sharply, looked her up and down as though to confirm that her body supported what he'd seen in her face.

"You're me, then?"

She nodded.

"But... a girl?"

"Can’t sneak nothing past us."

A ghost of a smile.

"Do you want to talk? I mean, about this. I know you always _want_ —"

"I always _want_ to talk," Peter said at the same time, and actually laughed. "My jokes aren't good enough to split two ways," he joked weakly, and moved aside on his cherub to make room for Jessica.

Tony caught the kid's eye long enough to indicate that he'd be standing just inside the balcony, then retreated to give them some privacy while keeping them in his line of sight.

It was weird. Last night Tony would have—in fact, he had—done everything in his power to keep the kid from knowing about Jessica. Tony had been sure there was no reason for him to know about the type and degree of abuse that was happening in this hotel. Jesus, just the fact that it was happening out of a defunct hotel in Jersey was affrontive.

Tony wasn't sure if it was because he'd gotten to know Jessica, or if it was because he was seeing them together like this first time, but it was suddenly achingly clear to him how much the kid needed a peer. Someone who knew how to talk to him, who made the same jokes and knew how he thought. He was glad she was here.

Tony gave them a few more minutes of quiet conversation, then declared it time to go.

"You can finish up this chat at the Compound, maybe meet some of the others. Getting them out of there was only the beginning, we have a lot to figure out here. So—I don't know, hug it out or something, and let's head out."

They looked at one another in contemplation, and then they both shook their heads.

"Nah."

"We're good."

They made their way downstairs, this time through the building. The crowd outside and downstairs and grown with the arrest of the dozens of personnel of the facility, and now included several news outlets, as well. Tony didn't need any reports of multiple Spider-People on the evening news, not before they decided how to deal with multiple Spider-People.

They bypassed the deserted main lobby and went through the entrance-level ballroom, instead; but the doors to the gardens and the low wall that separated them from the street beyond were blocked by a lone figure silhouetted against the late-afternoon light.

"You know," the figure said, and his voice was deep yet whiny, plaintive and frustratingly familiar, "when I started working for the FBI I never imagined how far my work could go. I dreamed, of course, but until that plane of yours crashed, Tony, I just didn't have the missing pieces. Now..."

He turned around, and Tony felt more than saw both the kids tense behind him. He was wearing a dull black suit, so cheap it offended the sensibilities of other off-the-rack suits. It was coupled with a thin, black tie and small rectangular sunglasses, and the overall look was so absurd Tony had no doubt who was standing there even before his brain could recognize the face. He knew who this man was, and he knew who he was to the kid; Tony felt all his muscles tense in a painful, existential need to shield Peter and Jessica from his attention.

"Your work as always been twenty years behind the market, Otto," Tony said, subtly bracing against the floor in case he needed to shoot his repulsors. He heard the kids shifting softly behind him. "And judging by your Agent Smith aesthetic, so's your wardrobe. I don't know what insanity led you to think you could get away with this, but you're done. You're shut down. Let us leave and you can go nurse your bruised ego in peace."

Octavius had the audacity to laugh. He spread his arms wide in patronizing gracefulness, as though welcoming them into his home. "Shut down? Oh, no. I'm funded at the highest level. _You_ technically answer to _me_ , Stark. One call from me and you'll be ordered to return my little pets, and I'll just set up shop again somewhere else. That's how this works now." He shifted to peek behind Tony, and added, "Hello there, Jessica my girl. I'm so glad you've come home to Father. Let's gather your litter mates and we'll be on our way."

He looked over Tony's other shoulder, and Tony belatedly realized the kid was closer than he thought. He'd been edging closer to Tony. "And you, Peter... I have to say, I had no idea my work would involve you so closely. My passion has always been the genetics, you know. That my road to my legacy should involve perverting every single aspect of your life...And God, you should see some of the things we've done here, I mean _every single aspect_ , why, that's fate smiling down on me. And that you, Tony, should be here to see just how far I can push and poke your little fanboy? That's just when passions and hobbies align. This was meant to be."

Tony heard both Drew and Peter breathe heavily at the malice, the implied threat.

"Meant to be? Otto, aren't you forgetting something? You don't have your arms, and _one_ of this kid can kick your ass on your best day. You're outnumbered here."

"Oh, Stark. You never really understood me at all," he said, and raised his hands again. There was a rumble all around them, out the walls and up from the floor and down from the ceiling. "My arms are merely a nostalgic attachment. Don't you see? I couldn’t control them because they were anything special, I could control them because _I_ was!”

The rumble somehow got louder, closer, and over the comms Rhodey was asking what the hell was going on, then yelling for someone to fall back.

"One day I'm going to be on a poster in every classroom, children the world over will know my very image!"

"I'm pretty sure they already do, Doc Ock," Peter said, from somewhere above and behind Tony. He wanted to turn to him, but he was rooted to the spot.

"I mean," Jessica added, " _Dumb and Dumber_ is a super popular movie."

"He was talking about his image, not his work," Peter quipped in a reasonable tone, except the voice was different. It was another Peter. Tony could hear others, the other clones, come in behind him, softly taking positions around the ballroom.

"That's fair. But the haircut has got to be proprietary. I mean, I find it hard to believe there are two barbers out there with such a tragic back story." That was his Peter again, and Tony couldn't tell where he was anymore. He wanted nothing more than to look, but he felt like he couldn’t even breathe properly.

What he could do was see Otto becoming agitated. Every time one of the kids spoke, he grew slightly redder, he shook a little harder with poorly suppressed fury.

The rumble suppressed to a distant moan.

"What is this, Otto? Why can't I move?"

"The greatest mind of our age!" Otto spat, with enough force that spittle somehow speckled his dark shades. "Don't you see it yet?" And with a look of immense concentration he drew his arms up and inward, and following his movement pipes and machinery and support beams came flying at him, raveling around him as he seemed to rise higher and higher off the ground, four metal arms now snapping and biting in every which direction. The suit constricted around Tony's neck.

"You kids think you're so goddamn funny, with your digs about my hair and my work and my name, _Doctor Octopus_ , so clever... Well, how's this for clever? I don't just control my lovely arms, I control the very metal! The purer the better! And then you come into my house, Stark, and try to steal my creations away? All you've done is gift me you and your beautiful suit. I hear it singing to me, begging me to control it, to own it!"

Tony's armor tightened further, and he gasped for breath. The armor was fighting back, using its strength to maintain its shape and integrity. Still, his ribs felt bound in cement, the neck of the armor digging into his flesh, strangling him. Each breath became a drawn, hoarse gasp. Sound came in waves, in and out. He heard Jessica tell Rhodey and Vision to stay away, it wasn’t safe for them, but he didn’t hear their reply. He heard the Peters in the room cry out, but he couldn’t understand any of their words. He could hear the kid.

“Stop it, stop it!” Peter screamed, stepping forward. He still wasn’t wearing his mask, and his emotions were painfully easy to read. He was overwhelmed, scared, and desperate. “He’s not the one you want to kill, it’s me, it’s us. Stop it, let him go, and we’ll go with you, all of us.”

“Pete… no,“ Tony rasped, and it took the last of his air, and he couldn’t replace it. His body made the motions of breathing, but nothing was getting in. Shadows began to haunt the edges of his vision.

And the kid ignored him. “That’s what you want, right? All of them, all the clones back, and me, to extract original cells from? You know by now they destroyed all your samples.”

Tony’s vision blackened, he wasn’t sure for how long. When it cleared Tony was able to draw haggard breaths and Octavius was pointing somewhere behind him.

“You, come here.”

“No, first let Mr. Stark get out of here,” Peter said, pointing back to Tony but keeping his eyes on Otto.

“I said _you, here.”_ Otto repeated.

Tony still couldn’t turn his head, but there was no need. Peter Three, slight and scared, his mask covering his mutilated face, soon came forward into Tony’s line of sight. Otto gestured him closer and closer, patronizingly beckoning with a finger until he was about five feet away.

“I think it’s important you all remember how this works,” Otto said, his voice malicious and mirthful. He was enjoying himself, delighting in the power he held over the kid.

“Mask, off,” he ordered, and Peter Three obeyed, slowly pulling it up and around his missing cheek.

“You know, he is one of my favorites. Watching him submit, willingly, day after day, to whatever it was we had planned, it was…” Otto mimicked a chef’s kiss, then continued.

“It’s a bit too late for you because I’m taking this batch, Stark, but if you’re good maybe I’ll make you a new one, for Christmas. If I ever _do_ gift you a little Parker Pup, remember that the secret to breaking their will is follow-through.

“ _Please don’t hurt her!”_ Otto mimicked in a high-pitched, mocking voice, and laughed as Peter Three winced and looked away. “Naturally, I did. It was nothing to create a few dozen clones of his beautiful aunt. Of course her DNA wasn’t as durable as his, the finished product only survived two or three hours before it shut down, but that’s plenty of time to do damage, isn’t it, Peter?” Otto extended one of his metallic arms and gently caressed Peter’s healthy cheek, then dipped under his chin to lift his head, until Peter was looking right at him.

“I promise, you, all of you, if you cause me any trouble, I will murder your friends every single day for as long as you live,” Otto said, then impaled Peter Three with a single, sharp stab of his metal arm. The whole thing pierced him clear through, the three-pronged tip snapping behind Peter’s back like a small, bloody bird looking for worms.

“No,” Tony breathed, but it was soft and too weak and too late. No, no, no, his mind repeated as he saw Peter’s death unfold, some cruel instinct telling him that if he watched closely enough, if he remembered every detail, he’d be able to undo it. Peter’s body spasmed once, twice, as it suspended on Otto’s snake-like arm, before it flung him into the closest wall. Sparks flew as Peter hit a junction box, then fell to the ground. Blood gurgled up from his throat and out his broken cheek as he coughed painfully, the thick metal still lodged in his chest, still attached to Otto.

Tony wanted to vomit. He heaved, his ribs strained, but still couldn’t move. Couldn’t take his eyes off of the body of the kid, shuddering lightly on that monstrous arm like fish on a hook.

“You are all expendable to me. Remember that, too.”

Octavius smiled, and gave the arm piercing the kid a tug, as though to shake the kid off, but he was impaled too thoroughly. Peter’s head lolled, a soft groan escaping hollowly from the broken cavern of his mouth.

But then he raised his eyes, and they were clear and determined. He looked first at Peter, at _his_ Peter, who was still standing between him and Tony. Tony wished he could see his face. But all he saw was the determined look on Peter Three’s face, and in return a single nod from the kid.

Peter Three launched himself at the junction box and wrapped his hands in the exposed wires.

Tony bit back a cry and shut his eyes, but it hardly mattered. He heard Peter’s scream ( _he screwed his eyes tighter_ ) he smelled burning flesh ( _he tried to twist his head away, even an inch would be better than)_ he could all but see the flashover that would char his flesh _(no—no, he’s just a—why)_

A second scream sounded, deeper and angrier but just as pained, and Tony was knocked clear off his feet, tumbling backwards in a mess of armor and limbs.

They landed with Tony halfway on top Peter and under Jessica, all three groaning from the impact.

"Ugh, Sorry about that," Jessica groaned as she pushed herself to her feet, and then pulled Tony off Peter. “He was distracted, so his hold on your suit was compromised. It was our only chance to get you out of there.”

The two of them had launched at Tony, knocking all three of them outside the ballroom, and as Tony in turn pulled Peter to his feet he had a moment to look around.

The previously pristine lobby and entry-way now looked like an abandoned subway station. The floors and walls were ripped open, reluctantly yielding any metal hidden in supports, infrastructure, and pipes. The glass from the tall windows and the ornate revolving doors had blown out from the force of all the metal fighting to get in, and lay in jagged pieces across the blue-and-gray carpet. That explained the cuts that peppered Peter’s cheeks, which put Tony in mind of—

"Well, you called it," Jessica said, shaking glass out of her hair. "It's definitely an asshole, a dickhead and a madman."

“Yeah,” Peter said, absently rubbing his cheek then wincing. Tony could see tiny, gleaming shards embedded there.

“Mr. Stark, you have to get out of here. That burst of electricity won’t keep him down for long. The others will keep him distracted, but Jessica and I have to get back in there.”

Tony couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He could still hear—smell—“You are _not_ going back there,” he said, advancing on the kid. He suddenly remembered just how livid he’d been on that rooftop, and why. “Otto Octavius just _murdered_ one of your clones, do you remember that? You _,_ both of you, _you_ get the hell out of here, and regroup with Rhodey and Vision. If he’s lecturing me about greatness, maybe the others can get out.”

The sounds of a fight had resumed, and while Tony hardly wanted to go back into that ballroom and see what—who—was lying there, the only thing he wanted less was for more bodies to join the first. He certainly couldn’t let that maniac get his hands on the kids.

Peter took a step forward, his anger matching Tony’s. “No! He almost crushed you inside your suit! Do _you_ remember _that_? If you go back in there he can kill you like that,” Peter snapped for emphasis, “and I can’t let that happen.”

Tony exhaled through his nose. Looked out the shattered windows. Back at the kids. What a clusterfuck.

“Pete, Jess, I’m begging you. I’m begging. Please, get out. Octavius is batshit crazy, but he's right. He _can_ continue doing this unless we stop him. We need to get proof of what he's done here, and that means I'm staying to record his rambling confession. The only way he stops is if the public comes down on this hard enough to make the government disavow him. You don’t need to be here for that. I know you hear Rhodey and Vision over the comms, they’re with me. This isn’t a democracy, but if it was, there’re three of us who vote for you to get the hell out. _Please_.”

The kid pulled on his mask, and Tony knew he’d lost.

“Three of you but ten of me, Mr. Stark,” Peter said. “We can’t stop you from going back in there, but you can’t stop us, either.”

And over Tony’s protests Peter and Jessica leapt back into the fray.

~*~

“Tones, are you okay?”

Of course he wasn’t.

“Tony?”

Rhodey sighed. He straightened his tie and swallowed before speaking again. “Well, I see you’ve eaten. That’s good.” He hummed to fill the silence that lay heavy around them, like a fog. He picked up a discarded arc reactor housing unit, tossed it once in the air, then set it down on the long table in the lab.

“Yeah. So… We leave in 30 minutes, everyone else is ready. Be there, okay?”

Tony huffed, almost against his will. Okay? Was that still a thing?

~*~

They flew out to the cabin in a private plane. A quinjet would have been faster, but Tony supposed he’d wanted to postpone this as much as possible. He sat alone, hiding behind his dark sunglasses even on board.

He’d decided on cremation, and the others agreed. Or maybe they just didn’t want to fight with him. In any case, he wouldn’t have allowed anything else. He couldn’t risk someone digging up the bones and taking another stab at mass cloning of Peter Parker.

They stood out on the far side of the lake, and no one spoke.

No one knew what to say.

But the kid stood so close to Tony it was almost like he knew. Like he knew Tony needed it more than anything. And when Tony dared to reach out, to initiate contact and place a hand on the kid’s shoulder, Peter only tilted his head slightly and discreetly said, “You won’t hurt me.”

Tony didn’t cry, but he squeezed harder.

They couldn’t put up real markers, even though they were mourning real people. Instead, Tony’s property had five new saplings.

He still hadn’t said anything to anyone when they arrived back to the Compound.

~*~

“Tony—Mr. Stark,” Vision corrected, though Tony wasn’t sure why. Maybe to remind him of Jarvis. He was thoughtful like that sometimes. “Dr. Richards called. He said everything is ready. Would you like to accompany Mr. Parker?”

Tony flinched at the name. They’d just buried _five_ Mr. Parkers last week. He’d watched five versions of the kid die, in various degrees of agony.

Otto had held Peter Sixteen in two of his metal arms folded him in two, snapping his back in a crunch that Tony was sure he’d imagined, but could still hear, nonetheless. He bled from those keen, blue eyes.

Peter Thirteen, blind but far more intuitive than the others, had heard the projectiles almost before Octavius had launched them. He stepped in front of Peter, _his_ Peter, to shield him, with enough time to look at Tony with unseeing eyes and mouth _I’m sorry_ before he was pierced through with a hundred makeshift bullets.

Peter Eleven—sassing Otto even has he lay there coughing up blood, using all four hands to flip him off one last time. Otto had practically foamed at the mouth, he was so angry. That distraction was what allowed the others to finally gain the upper hand.

And Peter Twenty, who had spent two days writhing in pain, his caustic bio-organic web fluid leaking into his bloodstream, burning him from the inside out as he whimpered and sobbed and pled to be allowed to die.

He’d failed all of them, so terribly. He would give anything to unsee five broken bodies. To unhear the cries of pain and unsmell the burned flesh. Unfeel Peter’s hot, burning tears as begged to be held at the end. As he looked up at Tony and fucking apologized.

And now Peter Fifteen. Another failure. He’d tried, for ten days he’d tried, but he couldn’t undo Otto’s sick work. He didn’t know how to detach the exoskeleton from his spine, how to untangle its command nodes from Peter’s nervous system. He’d turned to the only man in the world in whose company Tony wasn’t smartest man in the room, but even Reed had come up empty. All he could offer was a stasis chamber, so the kid could at least be comfortably unaware of the smothering suit and of the constant pain, until they could figure out a solution.

“Yeah, I’ll go with him,” Tony said, and stood up. He looked at Vision, wishing he could confide in him, like he had in Jarvis.

“None of this was your fault,” Vision said simply.

~*~

“So, I think it’s time for me to go away,” Jessica said one evening. They had eaten separately, but had taken to having coffee together around ten p.m. She took a delicate sip from her mug to waited to see how Tony would react.

Truth was, he’d seen this coming. He knew she couldn’t—and wouldn’t want to—stay at the Compound forever. The others had more or less told him as much.

Grant, who looked so much like Rogers, and Benjamin who had been Peter Eight, had initiated that conversation just a few days after the funeral. They were anxious to _do,_ and Tony, Rhodes, and Vision had sat together figuring out how that could happen. Within three days the pair of them shipped out, off to do some off-brand Spider-Manning with several foreign intelligence agencies in places that never heard of the Webbed Wonder from Queens. Rhodes had gone with them. Ostensibly, so they’d have a bona fide Avenger show them the ropes. In reality, Tony thought he just wanted a few more days to prepare Benjamin for how things would be different, now. How he engaged with local law enforcement, how he was perceived by the public, everything. It broke Tony’s heart that that was a conversation that still needed to be had.

But Jessica had chosen to stay stateside, and part of Tony was happy for it. He liked knowing at a glance, or at most a quick query with Friday, that she was safe. Until she announced that she was leaving.

“Why? And where to?”

“It’s time to put some new memories between me and Peter Parker. I’m not him, but I need to figure out _me._ I’m not a real person, just this lowkey abomination with no past, and I need to amass some history. I’m not sure where, not exactly. Just… Around. I’ll travel a little. Hitchhike. Get further west than the New Jersey Turnpike. _”_

“No, you absolutely won’t,” Tony said, horrified. He had no doubt she could defend herself, but the dangers out there were too many to count, numerous and eroding and sneaky, dangers that could scar her before she ever realized she’d been cut.

“Mr. Stark, I can—”

“Take care of yourself? Is that what you were going to say?” God, did she really think he was going to let that happen?

“Give me a day, let’s see if I can’t think of a better plan. Spoiler, I can.” He set down his own mug, and checked the time, calculated the time difference. He could still make some calls. He turned to leave, then heard what she’d said, that terrible thing she’d said. He turned back.

“And Jessica, you’re not an abomination. You’re…” Tony cast for an appropriate metaphor. “You’re like a teen pregnancy. Lots of poor judgement went into making you, but now that you’re here you’re just a kid. Yeah?”

She nodded, hugging herself in what had to be part of Peter Parker’s base code, because they _all_ did it. Had done it. She swiped at her eyes, and let her arms fall to her side. Tony wondered if she believed him. She’d been instrumental in bringing down Octavius, who was finally sedated in a black-site prison, devoid of any metal at all. She’d fought so bravely alongside the others. How could she think she was any less real, or any more at fault for being born than—

“Fucking Christ. _Do_ you know about teen pregnancies? Do you need a… _talk_?”

“Oh, my God, _no,_ ” she said, as her hands shot up to cover her mouth. She looked mortified. “I mean, I think—I read—and I knew from before, and we had some, uh, _ed_ last year _,”_ she rambled, unable to even say the _sex_ part, “and if you just don’t—” Her face had gone pink all the way to her hair, and she was looking everywhere but directly at Tony, her eyes darting around him as though searching for the least suggestive spot to land.

He didn’t blame her. The question had slipped out, but there was _no way_ he was going to explain that to her. He’d have asked May, but Peter didn’t want her knowing about the clones, not yet. None of the Peters had, in fact.

“Yeah, okay, never mind, gotcha,” Tony answered, and left with a small salute. _What?_ He was as Rhodey was fond of reminding him, a grown ass man. Why was _he_ becoming flustered?

He went to make his calls.

It took a little longer than a day to get everything in order, but two mornings later Jessica was ready to go, and Peter had come up to see her off.

“Mr. Stark, why does Jessica get a car? And a new phone? And a credit card? You’ve known me for, like, way longer.”

“Because,” Tony said, crushing the kid in an insincere sideways hug dripping with condescension, “it’s five a.m. and she’s going to live in Tennessee. I promise that when you need to start an anonymous life in the outskirts of nowhere, I’ll hook you up, too.”

He let go of the kid, and turned to Jessica. “Drive safely,” he said, and handed her a keyring. “Stick to the route,” he added, and handed her a folded roadmap, with a route marked in red marker. “And this,” Tony said, holding out a sheer StarkPhone, “has everything you need. Contact info for the Compound, your bank account info, your fake history, access to your birth-certificate and social, the works. Pepper also put her number and some links on she wants to talk you through, some, uh, health stuff.” Tony handed her the phone without making eye-contact. They did not need a repeat of the other night. She took it with a slightly embarrassed _thanks_ and tucked it into her jeans.

“So, you’re ready to go. Harley’s expecting you. You’ll have your own place, but he’s good company while you figure out what’s next.” He stood back and put his hands in his pockets, but Jessica made no move to get in the car.

She gave him a calculated look, then stepped forward and standing on her tip-topes, wrapped his shoulders in a hug. “Thank you, Tony, for _everything._ The others, they didn’t all get a chance to say it, but they felt it. Being free from Ock for even five minutes was more than any of us every dreamed of.” Her voice was the softest whisper, and Tony held her, too. When she finished speaking, he held a little tighter. A little longer. A reminder that it hadn’t been for nothing. He hadn’t been powerless to stop Peter being murdered five times for nothing.

“Take care,” Tony said.

“You, too,” Jessica answered, and shot a deliberate glance at Peter.

Tony nodded. Of course he would, with his life.

“And you,” Jessica said, turning now to Pete, “take care of him.”

Peter smiled, and they hugged, an awkward embrace it seemed they both regretted immediately.

“We should both practice, get a little stronger,” Peter offered by way of goodbye. “It’s totally lame that it took five us to bring down Doc Ock.”

“Totally lame,” Jessica agreed, then amended, “though he did have four self-replenishing arms,” and Tony didn’t get how they could they be so cavalier about that fight.

“I’m gonna go before we have to hug again, or keep making the same awful jokes.” Jessica waved once more from inside the car, and was gone.

Tony made them breakfast, while Peter grilled him about Harley. It was just the two of them, for the first since before Ross came up to the Compound almost a month ago. Tony found himself marveling at how easily the kid drew breath before he remembered this Peter never had his spine snapped. It was hard to keep it straight; the memories of the others kept trying to impose themselves on the healthy, happy Peter. They managed to, surprisingly well.

"... And I know that then it was just a thing you said, but can we talk about upgrades? Nothing fancy, just I think the GPS is a little—"

“What did I say to you after the ferry incident? Do you remember?” It had been bugging Tony since Ross had brought Jessica to the Compound that first night.

“Oh, yeah, sure,” Peter said, what he’d been saying about the GPS forgotten. “I don’t think I could ever forget it. I asked you not to take the suit, cause you were so angry about the ferry thing, and you said _if you’re nothing without the suit, then you shouldn’t have it._ I remember because I didn’t really understand it. For _ever,_ like, for a month after, I thought that you meant that—”

But Tony immediately knew. It was why that conversation was in Jessica’s top three along with her parents and Uncle Ben dying. It was why all the clones had been so surprised that Tony would come and help.

“You thought that because I took it, it meant _I_ thought you were nothing without it.”

Peter nodded. “Yeah, I felt like crap for a few weeks, and then I realized I was a moron. We had a math sub, and instead of doing trig she did logic, even though Ms. Warren told us what pages to do in the textb—never mind, that’s not important, anyway, we learned about fallacies, and—”

“You realized that you got it backwards and—”

“Yeah, I felt really dumb after that.” He smiled sheepishly. “Ned said I was overreacting from the beginning, but I thought he was just being nice. Turns out he’s much smarter than me.” Peter shrugged and bit into a piece of bacon. “It’s too bad Ned never got to meet any of the clones, he’d have…” He made a small _pchoo_ sound and gestured his mind being blown. “But only five are _gone-_ gone, so maybe he’ll get a chance to meet the others.”

"How do you do it?" Tony asked. "How do take their death in stride?"

Peter made a face, but didn’t pretend to misunderstand or argue. "Why can't you?" He countered instead of answering.

"Why can't—kid, are you serious? Do you know what it’s like to watch kids—who look exactly like you, die? Over and over again?”

“Do you know what it’s like to watch Doc Ock—”

“That really is a stupid name.”

“He really is a stupid man. Do you know what it’s like to see you unable to breathe? Mr. Stark, he broke your ribs. We heard it. You were _gray._ You passed out and I thought you _died._ We all did. All of us, we made a choice to stay there, to make sure that wouldn’t happen. I’m not, like, _okay_ that they died, that was like attending my own funeral. But I know why they did. And I’m okay with _that_.”

“No, you see, that doesn’t make me feel better. You don’t get to choose to die to protect me, that’s not how this works. If I tell you to get out, you need to get _out._ Maybe some of them didn’t need to die.”

“But you’d have died, instead!” Peter ran a hand through his hair, gathered himself, and when he spoke again, he was no longer raising his voice. “Listen, it worked. You recorded him confessing to cloning, to torturing, to all of it, you got it to the news, you shut him down and you made it out alive. But _barely._ I’m—we—God, I don’t know how to talk about this—I’m Spider-Man in order to help people. You can’t tell me that doesn’t apply to you.”

“I’m goddamned Iron Man, it _doesn’t_ apply! It can’t!” Tony snapped loudly, leaning over the island in the kitchen in his fervor to get the kid to understand. Peter flinched, but didn’t move so much as a hair.

“Being Iron Man means you’re in more danger, not less, don’t you see that?”

Tony hit the countertop, causing one of the plates to skid dangerously close to the edge. He was almost sorry it didn’t shatter on the floor, to complement how livid, how frail he was feeling. He was bursting with impotence. “It’s _not your place!_ The others know it, they all left. I don’t need protection, especially not from a kid a third my age!”

Now the kid stood up, his jaw squared in determination, full of fierceness that was somehow strengthened rather than belied by his red-rimmed eyes. “The others left only because they knew _I_ was staying. We talked about it! It is important to me,” Peter indicated his own chest with an urgent desperation that cut through Tony’s anger, “to _all_ the mes, to keep you safe. Whatever that takes.”

Tony sighed. The anger was gone, and in its place was a hard, palpable grief, and a cloying need for it to never be compounded. “I can’t watch you die again, Pete. I can’t,” Tony said softly.

And suddenly the few feet that separated them were too many; they were the length of a ballroom, standing between Tony and a kid he needed to keep safe.

In two long strides Tony breached the distance between them and wrapped Peter in a deep hug. Peter clung to him with sharp need. “Me neither, you,” he whispered, and the dam of his self-control slowly—but surely—cracked. His breath hitched once, and he buried his face in Tony’s shoulder. Hot, silent tears followed.

Jesus. Tony raised a hand, lowered it, then raised it again and put it on the back of the kid’s head. What a dick. _He_ was having a hard time of things? _He_ was grieving? How could he put his needs ahead of the kid’s right now? Raving at him for trying to keep one aspect of his life stable, safe, when the rest of his life lay flayed open by Otto Octavius and his sick sense of scientific curiosity.

The kid was hanging on by a thread, and Tony was adding his own dead weight.

Tony stood beside the kitchen island until Peter calmed, then slowly pulled out of the embrace. The kid swiped at his face, then raised his eyes to Tony’s shirt. Before they found their target, though, Tony had grabbed a towel off the counter and pretended to wipe his hands then flung it onto his left shoulder, covering the tearstain.

“I… I’m sorry you had to watch me die, Mr. Stark,” Peter said quietly. “I, I know it wasn’t… What I’m trying to say is, I know. And thanks,” he stumbled, fighting for control. When he regained it, he added, “and I promise I don’t make light of it. I meant what I told Jessica. I can get better, stronger. I make mistakes, but I learn from them, I always learn from them. You won’t have to watch me die again, I _promise_.”

The sadness that filled Tony was new, and thick, and encompassing. It started in his stuttering heart, a wave that overcame him and then receded, exposing a nostalgia he didn’t know he felt. To be innocent enough to believe practice could keep his safe, to be ignorant of stray bullets and bad luck and impossible ultimatums, had Tony ever been like that? He supposed he must have, but he couldn’t for the life of him recapture what that kind of optimism felt like. His base instinct was to Howard it out of the kid, remind him that it could all end in a moment, the other shoe could drop without any warning and it would crush him like a roach.

But Tony had placed enough on the kid’s shoulders. He didn’t need to take this away, too. If something did happen, he didn’t need the kid to think that Tony blamed him. He’d had enough deathbed apologies from Peter to last a lifetime.

So he didn’t challenge the kid’s promise, but he didn’t offer up a promise of his own, either.

“Just promise me you’ll think twice before jumping into a dangerous situation,” Tony asked, and Peter nodded, relieved to be done with the fight.

He’d let Peter keep this small pocket of innocence that somehow survived his childhood.

There was another pocket of innocence, though, one Tony was surprised had lasted this long; but following his conversation with Jessica, it was getting dangerous _not_ to take that away from him. _You just don’t,_ she’d said… Another conversation he couldn’t believe still needed to be had.

“Pete, there’s one more thing. Let’s go sit,” Tony said, nodding towards the sitting area beyond the kitchen.

The kid took a seat, folding his legs beneath him, bouncing slightly in his seat. He was apparently misreading Tony’s utter apprehension from this conversation as something to anticipate.

Tony was about to crush the anticipation out of him, and fuck him sideways, how did his life come to this? He sighed, then took the plunge.

“Pete, I think we need to have a _Talk._ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, thanks for reading! I hope managed to convey even a fraction of the emotional assault of the Clone Saga in the comics. 
> 
> The science here is shoddy even for comic-book science, so kindly just let it happen and be forgiving of the nonsense in that regard. 
> 
> If you're bored and looking for new content, check out the 2006 Clone Saga (it's available online, probably somewhat illegally). It's a much tighter narrative than the original one, and has all the feels (sadly, only one or two frames of Tony Stark, though). 
> 
> Anyway, I'm happy to hear what you thought of this, of the idea of clones in general, and any other thoughts, comments, ideas, or comments you may have!


End file.
